The Trial of Sirius Black
by Hemlockconium
Summary: Sirius Black is finally getting the trial he was denied nearly thirteen years ago. The verdict will decide his fate: a chance to reunite with his family or a punishment worse than death. (Under reconstruction. I apologise for the inconvenience.)


_**A/N:**_ This is the second instalment of a series that I began a while back and have since started rewriting. The first story is called Kali Black and the Estranged Convict, and I am halfway through updating and reposting it. Once that's done, I'll start updating this story again!

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**Chapter One:**

**The Fallout**

The living room fireplace roared to life as green flames leapt out of nothingness.

Freyja Morrigan stepped through them and into her family home, followed shortly by Sirius Black.

The man's skeletal frame was frightening to behold; pallid skin clung to bones, and his sunken eyes all but disappeared in their sockets. His hair, which had once been his pride and joy, hung to his waist, lustreless and lifeless, with more tangles than a rat's nest. He was bruised and battered from the previous night's run-in with a werewolf, walking with a limp as he hobbled away from the fireplace. He kept close to the walls, sticking to the shadows, his gaze downcast and his shoulders slumped.

Freya barely recognised him; she had never before seen a living person look so much like an Inferius.

"You need food," she said as she slipped out of her coat and sent it whizzing to the coat cupboard.

She had not expected him to flinch at the sound of her voice nor jump a foot into the air as the garment flew past him. Her attempt not to stare was less than successful, but she could not shake the thought that a stranger stood in front of her.

"Come along, Sirius."

She led him to the kitchen and pulled out a stool at the island counter. He crept behind her, silent as a mouse and unnerving enough to make the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. She waved him towards the seat as she carried on towards the fridge—a large Muggle appliance which Remus had convinced her to buy. Cooking was not a skill she possessed, but after twelve years in Azkaban, she doubted that Sirius's standards were high. Levitating vegetables onto a cutting board, she turned to find Sirius loitering beside the stool, standing inhumanly still, his gaze distant and lost.

"Sirius, sit down." Her tone was sharper than intended, but it snapped him from whatever dark corner of his mind he'd been ensnared by. He did as he was told.

She had no in-depth knowledge of starvation, but she had represented people who had experienced it firsthand; thus, she knew enough not to give him a heavy meal. With a slash of her wand, the vegetables fell to pieces. Another quick spell heated them, cooking them to reduce the fibre content. She removed the charred bits and placed the rest of the uneven chunks into a glass and liquified them.

After adding sugar and honey, she slid the glass across the counter and watched as Sirius slowly drank it down. No doubt, it tasted foul, but he didn't say a word. His hand shook under the negligible weight of the cup, and his chest heaved with every swallow and breath. Freyja added light exercise to the list of things Sirius would be required to do once he was well enough.

"Is there more?" he asked. His voice grated in his throat like nails on a chalkboard.

"Not yet. Let your body work its way through that first." She set the cup aside and eyed his grubby skin and matted hair. "Let's get you cleaned up."

She came within a foot of him on her way back around the counter. While she focused on breathing in through her mouth to avoid inhaling the scent of dirt, mould, and sweat that clung to him, she almost didn't notice the way he tensed when she came near. Like wires being snapped taut, his muscles clenched hard enough that he quivered from it. Seeing Sirius 'no sense of personal space' Black flinch away from human contact made Freyja's gut twist uncomfortably, but she didn't say a word as she ushered him towards the ground floor bathroom—braving the stairs would be a task for another day.

As Sirius trailed after her, casting uncertain glances left and right, the image of a stray dog picked up off of the streets entered Freyja's mind, and once there, it refused to leave.

He had been so filled with joy when Kali had told him the good news, but his smile had lasted only so long as his daughter had been in the room. Then the adrenaline from last night and the happiness from earlier this morning had died down, leaving nothing to him but his diminished frame and haunted eyes.

The downstairs bathroom was the smallest in the house, but that only meant that it was big enough to fit ten people comfortably rather than twenty. Freyja cast a heating spell on the stone tiles and took a couple of towels from the linen closet, laying them out on the sink counter beneath the wide mirror.

"I would suggest you start with a shower then go for a soak in the tub," said Freyja as she examined her reflection and wiped away a smudge of mascara from her cheekbone. "There's shampoo, conditioner, and soap inside the shower stall, as well as bath bombs and bubble bath products on the shelves."

"Thank you." His voice was almost too quiet to hear, so unlike the loud, energetic boy she'd met fifteen years ago.

With one last glance at the mirror, she headed out. "I'll leave the door open in case you need anything."

It took her ten minutes to realise that she had yet to hear the water running. She sat in the conservatory, flipping through her various newspapers, none of which had yet informed the wizarding and Muggle communities that Sirius Black was no longer a wanted man. If the news did not come out in the evening editions, Freyja would have to contact Cornelius Fudge and have a firm word with him.

As she folded the Daily Prophet and put it with the others, she glanced outside where the rays of morning light filled the air with a soft glow and birds chirped as a gentle breeze played through the trees. It was a beautiful, melodious day, but inside the house, all was quiet.

Freyja strode from the room, the sharp slap of her heels echoing down the hall. Scenarios she did not wish to contemplate ran through the back of her mind as her heart rate became frantic, but when she turned the corner and spun into the bathroom, Sirius was right where she'd left him.

"What are you doing?" she asked, breathing in deeply to calm her frazzled nerves.

He fiddled with the sleeves of his robes, tugging at the frayed fabric. "I can't…" He let out a deep, shuddering breath. "I need help."

Sirius had been a proud man before Azkaban, and even now, he stood there, unable to so much as remove his robes yet disinclined to ask for help, having to force the words out.

To put it mildly, Freyja did not enjoy touching people. Her deep-seated aversion to physical contact was a long-standing affair, but Sirius had set aside his pride to ask for assistance, and given the state he was in, it would have been cruel to refuse.

Removing robes was not as easy a feat as removing common Muggle clothes. Robes were longer, heavier, and tended to be fastened with awkward knots and buckles. Sirius had stolen this set from a dustbin in Hogsmeade. They hung from his frame, drowning him in the many folds of fabric, but were not long enough to reach his ankles. He had used lengths of rope to keep the ragged thing from falling apart and to bundle it up more tightly to fight against the cold. It was difficult to imagine that his Azkaban robes had been in even worse shape than these.

As Freyja worked on unravelling one knot at a time, her gaze caught on Sirius's shaking hands. The tremors ran through his fingers, violent enough to make it seem like they were vibrating.

The robes fell away from his body, too large to remain on his thin frame without assistance. Sirius's skin was frighteningly pale—it almost hurt to look at. His hipbones jutted painfully against his skin, and Freyja could see each one of his ribs. The tattoos that covered his arms and torso were the only aspect that was unchanged. To keep herself from staring, Freyja removed her blazer, shoes, and stockings and rolled up the sleeves of her blouse.

The shower stall had a marble bench, bought for Remus's post-transformation washes; she directed Sirius towards it. He didn't say a word, and neither did she as she washed away every trace of Azkaban and his year on the run, scrubbing hard enough to leave his skin red but spotless.

The tremor in his hands had calmed by the time she got around to washing his hair, but she was already soaked, so she carried on. It took her an hour to get his hair cleaned and untangled, and she was convinced that Sirius nodded off a couple of times.

When she stepped out of the shower, she twirled her wand to dry herself off and, with another flick, turned on the bath. Sirius stepped out after her, and she felt a swell of pride when she saw that he stood taller than before. She added a bath bomb to the water, watching as it dissolved into swirling colours and sparkles. Sirius watched it also, with something that was almost a smile playing at the edges of his lips and softening his eyes.

Sirius slid into the water, a sigh escaping him as the hot water enveloped him. His eyes flagged shut, his facial expression relaxing. Freyja made to leave and got so far as the door before Sirius called out to her, "Could you stay?"

Freyja had seldom felt the need for companionship; she enjoyed silence, and small talk was beyond her, but Sirius had always been a far more sociable creature, and if it was company he desired, she would have to do. She considered excusing herself and returning with her case files but caught sight of Sirius's hair, the strands floating like serpents in the water. It was far too long, even by Sirius's standards.

Freyja was by no means a beautician, but she'd been cutting her hair for decades, and Sirius was in desperate need of a trim. So, as Sirius soaked in the tub, she sat on the wide ledge and got to work, using her wand to slice away the excess hair and levitate it towards the bin under the sink. It would have been faster and easier to shave it all off, but Sirius had once been so attached to his hair that she couldn't bring herself to do it. There was no saving his beard, though, which was coarse and patchy. She shaved it off, revealing the hollowness of his cheeks.

Only when his fingers started to prune did he begin to talk.

Freyja dried his hair, pleased to see that it had regained some of its lustre. She snipped off a few more strands and was so focussed on the work at hand that when he finally spoke, she almost nicked his ear.

"How has Kali been doing?"

His voice was carefully monotone but nevertheless held a tense edge to it. Freyja did not know which answer he feared most, so she told the truth. "She's been doing very well."

"She's happy?"

"Happier now that you're here. She's been quite insistent for a great many years that you don't belong in Azkaban."

Sirius glanced at her over his shoulder; brows furrowed and eyes uncertain. "She has?"

Freyja stood, straightening her skirt and unrolling her sleeves, removing any creases with a practised spell. She sat back down on the opposite end of the tub, facing Sirius. "Oh, yes. She never stopped loving you."

The blush warmed his cheeks, restoring some of their vitality. His gaze dropped to his hands, where he thoroughly examined every new ridge the water had created. "That was kind of her."

"Indeed."

When the silence began to stretch, he looked up at her, a watery sheen still evident in his eyes. "What about you? How have you been? How has your, uh, work been?"

As Sirius blundered through questions about Freyja's career, her hotels, and the business market, she waited patiently for him to work up the nerve to ask about whatever it was he was forestalling, which eventually he did.

"Kali mentioned that Ash and Leila died a few years ago," he said, his gaze once again downcast and his voice barely more than a whisper. "What happened?"

"Asherah died five years ago." Freyja kept her voice even despite the ball forming in her throat. "She was caught off guard and killed by Muggle criminals. It happened quickly. She didn't… she didn't suffer much." Freyja's heart felt cold in her chest, but she did not shed a tear—she had run out of those a long time ago. "Leilani got into a Quidditch accident nearly three years ago. A Bludger damaged her spine. She was in the hospital for months; we thought she was recovering, but she took a turn for the worse."

Sirius stared into the blue and purple depths of the water. His voice filled an unquantifiable sorrow that made him sound hollow; he said, "At least you got to say goodbye."

Freyja nodded briskly and put an end to the conversation by draining the cooling water from the tub. "You should eat again before going to bed."

Even after another square meal, Sirius didn't manage to ask about how Remus had been during his absence—that topic was apparently as far from safe as could be, so Freyja didn't mention it. She set Sirius up in one of the spare bedrooms and left him to rest as she got back to work.


End file.
